


Crashing Out

by PuzzleRaven



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Child Death, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Other, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-09-06 18:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20295658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuzzleRaven/pseuds/PuzzleRaven
Summary: Brockton Bay is a bright and shining beacon for capes, under the fair and even and controlled hand of Emily Piggot, and the leader of the protectorate, Crash, a new young perfect flawless completely trusted hero who can solve everything... and no one can say a word against him.





	1. Chapter 1

"...and that is how, when the Teeth arrive, we can defeat the Butcher and revitalise Brockton Bay at the same time." Piggot smiled in approval as the most valuable asset the PRT had in Brockton Bay finished speaking.

"Brilliant as always, Crash. We'll implement the plan immediately!” There was a round of heart-felt applause and the young man sat, smiling modestly.

“Just doing my job, ma’am.”

“And doing it well. Battery, relay the details to PRT Central H.Q. If you can tear yourself away from Armsmaster long enough." There were giggles at the table and the blue-clad heroine smirked, with one last lascivious run of her hand over the man’s blue armour, and sauntered out of the room swinging her hips. The tinker's gaze followed as he smiled fondly.

Battery had really blossomed after her divorce from Assault, Piggot reflected, turning into a beautiful, confident, second-tier hanger-on, to Armsmaster. She turned her attention back to the meeting, moving to the next item on the agenda. “Now, about the Endbringers…”

“I have a plan for them.” Crash said humbly, and Piggot waved him to take the floor. She'd never trusted capes, but after two weeks of friction, Crash had got her to admit that was just the after-effects of Nilbog. Now she saw them for the valuable untrustworthy individuals that they were. “If we-” The door opened with a crash and Vista ran into the room, pigtails bobbing cutely as the girl skidded to a stop.

"Director, the merchants are attacking the Docks!" Crash leapt to his feet at the words, grabbing his gun from the holster.

"Armsmaster with me," he ordered as the second-in-command of the PRT stood immediately, his halbard extending for combat.

"Stay safe, Mr. Crash. " Vista lisped, as Crash flew from the room, leaving her gazing adoringly after him as the Supra-Alexandria Brute was followed by his halberd-wielding mentor. She slumped and Piggot sympathised with the cape. Vista knew that the front line was no place for a child soldier, and she was only a girl. What could she do to fight?

“We’ll have this handled by lunch.” Crash’s shout echoed back, and Emily Piggot sat down, smiling approval. The situation couldn't be in better hands than the Brockton Bay Protectorate, and she knew they'd resolve it efficiently as they always did. She trusted them completely.

The master stranger button was an inch from her fingers. Her hand would not move to press it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final confrontation between Good and Evil and Vista is forced to watch helplessly as the perfect cape, Crash, confronts all comers. Outnumbered, enemies on all sides, she can only think about what courage it must take for the utterly invulnerable supra-Alexandria Brute to try to take on these odds.

Vista trembled. After all their preparation, all the PRT's defences, it had come to this. The Merchants were attacking, but it was Oni Lee who simply warped through the PRT's window and snatched her. The last thing she had heard was Piggot swearing to turn out everyone to save her, but if all the bad guys were working together this was it: the final showdown. Crash had warned them it was coming.

Skidmark and the Merchants blocked off one end of the beach, Squealers huge sleek tank revving in the front ranks. Inshore, in front of the remaining warehouses, the unmasked Empire had turned out for their last stand. The ABB held the ground further inshore, off set on a diagonal to cut off Protectorate retreat, the Oni standing at the front of his troops. If anyone tried to fire, he could teleport and his clone cut her throat before the bullet hit.

The small, pitifully outnumbered, Protectorate forces cowered behind temporary barricades that Armsmaster had thrown down from his bike. It was a good thing Crash had told him to build them, Vista thought. There'd be no one coming to save her. If only there was something she could do to move the knife away from her neck, but she was so weak, her pitiful useless ability to warp space no help at all. If someone could snipe him silently - but only Crash could make such a difficult shot at Oni Lee's exposed head. She whimpered, tears beginning to swell in her eyes.

"You monsters! She's just a child." Purity glared at Oni Lee from the front lines of the Protectorate. She burned so bright it was hard to look at but the Empire defector, well-known for her kind-heart and love of all children, couldn't fire without hitting Vista.

"Let her go or die!" The command rang clearly in Piggot's voice, and Vista's heart lifted to see the Director, fully armed, pointing a sniper rifle at Oni Lee's head. She looked awesome, back where she should be commanding the action; from the thick of it rather than leaving it to some cowardly responsible pen-pusher in the back rank just getting reports and a full overview of the scene, instead of down and dirty in the fight.

"Release our leverage?" Kaiser sneered. He stepped to the front of the Empire group, as Skidmark did the same for the Merchants.

"Not until you agree to fight us." The dreadlocked drug addict said, coldly. Crash gritted his teeth.

"No! She's a Ward, you cowards. Why would you kidnap her?"

"Because I told them to," To her horror, Velocity moved forward from the ABB's ranks. His costume was covered by a cloak in the gang's colours, declaring his new allegience. Crash looked shocked. "I handed them Vista. I've been telling them all your plans from the start. Every time your plans failed it was I, your rival." Vista shook. Velocity had been foiling Crash's plans. All his plans that she knew of had worked, but some had not gone perfectly. Crash's plans were for the good of everyone. What kind of monster would interfere?

It made horrible sense that Velocity, the only Asian cape in the Protectorate would betray them. Velocity, the new leader of the ABB, the traitor in the ranks. It all made sense now. He must have co-ordinated this with the Merchants, set up this final showdown for the soul of Brockton Bay. With a thrill, she realised this was it, the forces of evil about to be driven from Brockton Bay completely. Crash strode forward, alone against the four capes, showing the real courage of the invulnerable, indestructible, brute.

"Who are you?" Crash demanded.

"That's Velocity. " Vista shouted, before Velocity could quiet her.

"Traitor!" Crash's shock had been replaced by resolute defiance. "I challenge you now. Combat, man to man!"

"Agreed!" Velocity stepped forward, casting aside his red and green ABB cloak. Crash drew his guns, striding forward.

"Be careful, Crash, he's dangerous. " Armsmaster warned. The Supra-Alexandria Brute nodded, locking eyes with the Mover, and stepped into a fighting pose, guns held at right angles in his hands. Everyone in Brockton Bay watched with bated breath. Crash fired, and Velocity dodged. The mover feinted, skidded to a stop by the front row. Crash holstered his guns as he threw himself forward, unable to fire lest he hit one of the capes.

And Armsmaster's halberd ran him through. The tinker reacted too slowly as a teen in PRT armour grabbed his arm, slamming it forward and punching through the power armour like glass. Armsmaster backhanded the teen, trying to free his weapon, knocking the huge boy down with a snap of bones. Before he could pull the blade back, Velocity appeared in realtime, grabbing the staff and pushing it down, grinding the nanothorns through the brute's heart. Crash screamed as his armour dissolved, evaporating.

Impaled on the weapon, a ten-year-old boy clutched at the ruin of his torso, severing fingers on the blade.

"But I wanted to be a hero," he said incredulously, and his body slipped from the blade, limp. Velocity looked at Panacea. She didn't move. Reluctantly, Velocity bent to check the body, pressing two ungloved fingers to the boy's neck.

"He's gone." No thunder rolled, no rain fell. It remained a cold New England morning. "He's really gone." He sounded unsure of what he would have done if Crash wasn't.

Abruptly Battery pushed herself away from Armsmaster, fell to her knees, and vomited. The Protectorate leader didn't move to comfort her, putting a hand to his helmet.

"Dragon. Dragon?" he asked, ignored. On reflex, the knife warped a foot from Vista's neck and she ducked and rolled, onto land that twisted impossibly to bring her safely behind Protectorate lines. Piggot and Panacea were staring at each other, Amy horribly pale. Their glares were nothing to the sick looks on the faces of the Wards. Shadow Stalker was staring at the unmasked Grue in undisguised horror.

"I'm so sorry..." Amy muttered.

"It's done," Piggot said dismissively, her mouth set in a tight line.

"That motherfucker raped my mind!" Skidmark shouted, "let's fuck 'em up!" Vista shot to her feet, expanding the beach between the forces to give the PRT a corridor of fire. Strategically, the PRT were outnumbered, trapped, and few of their capes were up for a fight. The villains didn't seem to be in much better shape.

Velocity stood up, shaking slightly. "Don't be stupid. Crash rigged this so the Protectorate wins." He looked at Kaiser and Oni Lee, still wavering on his feet. "Endbringer truce? Until we can work out how much he made us do."

"Agreed," Kaiser said, looking towards Purity. She had dimmed and turned away, her head in her hands. The Oni nodded silently, once. Piggot stood up, taking a hell of a risk in such an exposed position. One blade, one teleporting assassin, and she was dead.

"The PRT agrees." All heads turned towards Skidmark.

"No fuckin' brainer. Need to find out what that turd's done to my..." words trailed off into muttering as slowly the battlelines begain to withdraw, still wary, not turning their backs on each other until they were finally far enough out of sight to turn and run. The PRT slowly lowered weapons.

Velocity was left alone in the middle of the beach.

"Protectorate?" Piggot asked sharply, and he nodded, dropping to his knees in exhaustion as the teen who had stabbed Crash put a hand out to support him. "And who the hell are you?"

"Browbeat, ma'am," the teen said.


	3. Chapter 3

On screen, a group of thugs were attempting to rob a store in ABB territory. Almost without looking a blonde girl in a school uniform gestured and a nearby dumpster glowed and emptied itself over them, then scooped them up and settled down upside down. The demon-masked man appeared at the end of the street. There wasn't even a pause as the girl continued on her foot-dragging way, head low and he fell to ash, appearing by the dumpster a flicker later. There was a muffled bang.  
  
"Flashbang grenade inside the dumpster. It has a rust hole near the top - bottom - which must be how he saw in. No fatalities, but the police took the culprits to Brockton General." Piggot listened as Armsmaster finished his report. If Oni Lee was allowing Rune to walk unmolested through ABB territories what did that mean for the gangs?  
  
"Patrols." Armsmaster handed out the schedule. Piggot swept her glare round, ready to tactically quell any objections before they could be made. There were none. Crime was virtually non-existent. With most capes outed, the status quo in tatters, no one wanted to make the first move. Out-of-town villains might be planning to move in, but the smart ones would be letting someone else nudge the house of cards. Whoever did would be hit from all sides. Hero, villain, rogue or unpowered, there was something broken in the eyes of Crash's victims, something injured and numb. Piggot had seen that look in the mirror every morning since Ellisburg, but she'd never wanted to see it on children. The city was hurting, and it wanted a target.  
  
"Velocity is not listed on this." Ms. Militia wasn't challenging the orders, just stating fact as she ran her eyes over the display repeatedly.  
  
"Following recent events, Velocity is off duty until medically cleared to return to work," Armsmaster said. Piggot noted he did not mention what they had learned during debrief. 'Hero kills ten-year-old' was bad. "Insane hero murders child" was worse. Stepping in, she took the opportunity to bring up the next issue she expected pushback on, before any questions could arise.  
  
"We have Doctor Yamada on site for the next month. You all have time booked with her, and you will be attending." It wasn't just for the heroes. Piggot had rarely seen anyone as broken as Coil, if Calvert had in fact been Coil before Crash intervened. Just to complicate matters, Panacea could not tell how long he had had powers. If Crash had caused his trigger, his defense attorney could play everything off as a combination of bad trigger and the cruel manipulation of a human master. It might even be true. His power, if it was what Crash had claimed, was too useful to let him rot in the Birdcage. If there was any excuse at all, he was WEDG-bound; when he started talking and stopped waking up screaming.

In the immediate present she needed the Protectorate to get back up, to show some sign of fight, but there was no argument. She didn’t show her dismay at this passivity, moving on to the elephant in the room. "Do we have any leads on Crash's identity?" Better to tackle the matter head on than give the Protectorate time to think, or excuse themselves from the meeting.  
  
"None," Armsmaster confirmed. A ten-year-old who triggered might not even have much of an official one. It was possible no one was even looking for him, but she had to ask.  
  
"Nothing? No missing children cases?"  
  
"Plenty, but nothing matching his age or appearance in the Bay," Armsmaster reported. Piggot would have trusted Dragon's feedback more, but she wasn't going into that mess now. She needed her main Tinker functional.  
  
"Can we narrow the search? Dates, locations? He could have come from anywhere," Ms. Militia asked, sitting quite calmly. Her weapon, in her hand, was cycling from knife to assault rifle.  
  
"His first public appearance was on 1st January," Assault said, still pale and thin from the jail. Battery sat by him protectively, her hand locked on his.  
  
"A very precise date to make an entrance," Armsmaster said, and Assault nodded.  
  
"An actor prepares the set before he goes on stage," the former villain said, from experience.  
  
"So how long was he pulling strings before?" Piggot asked.  
  
"Given his age, not more than five years. Most likely one, maybe two." Piggot snorted outloud at the reply.  
  
"If a jury hears that, the Court of Appeal will have a field day. We're already going to have every criminal he caught claiming he mastered them into crime." Assault coughed, and Battery held the water glass up for him. "Some correctly." Piggot added grudgingly.  
  
"And what about me?" Canary said, quietly. "I only got probation because he spoke up for me, but if he mastered the jury-" She broke off with a sob. It didn't take much to see what the outcome of a retrial would be. Once news of what happened here got out, they'd be placing kill orders on Masters just for existing. Piggot took some pleasure in the fact that Heartbreaker and Nilbog would be top of the enforcement list.  
  
"It could also be claimed," Battery said decisively, "that he mastered you into committing the crime so he could control you: mastering a Master to stop you countering him."  
  
"Was he purely a Master or a Shaker?" Ms. Militia said. "His area of effect would have been wide, but he could have been creating a zone where he controlled all events."  
  
"Master," Armsmaster said. "Canary's trial was across the country and the course of events there only changed when he got directly involved."  
  
"And he was taken down in hand-to-hand. A zone effect would make that impossible," Battery added.  
  
"Which raises the question of how Velocity and Browbeat killed him?" Ms. Milita's weapon cycled again, for a moment taking a form like Armsmaster's halbard. Piggot wasn't sure the heroine had noticed.  
  
"Browbeat didn’t kill Crash," Armsmaster said, voice near-monotone, and Piggot scowled as she answered.  
  
"The fact remains, if Velocity had killed him outright we wouldn't be facing a situation where a fifteen-year-old Ward stabbed a ten-year-old hero live on camera."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Why didn't you snipe him?" Yamada asked, carefully neutral.

"I tried," Velocity said. "Every time, something went wrong. There was a flock of birds or he ducked, or the gun jammed." He tensed, staring at the table. "I was the shooter on the Medhall building. I had him in my sights." He fell silent, retreating into himself.

"And when you fired?" Yamada prompted, before the silence could stretch too far.

"Ms. Militia threw herself in the way." He blinked, the only movement in his frozen face. "If Panacea hadn't been there-"

"But Panacea was. Don't you think Crash's power arranged that?""

"Yeah." He laughed cynically. "In the bad manga, the hero's friend always gets hurt protecting them."

"So why didn't you try a second shot?"

"Because the second time the innocent always dies," Velocity nearly shouted. "You've got to have threats escalating, but you can't hurt the hero so authors hurt the girl, kill the girl, mutilate the next girl, it's a cliché."

"You thought Crash was a bad author?" Yamada kept her voice carefully non-judgemental. Feeding his delusions would complicate later treatment, but she had to be clear.

"I thought he was a young author. I didn't want to kill my teammate."

"Some people would say one team member for Brockton Bay's freedom seems like a reasonable exchange," she ventured, keeping her tone from judging him. With his military background, that should seem reasonable and she wanted to see how he was justifying himself. He didn't even pause, suddenly by the window so fast he didn't seem to have realised he'd used his powers.

"But it wouldn't have been just one. He'd have had them all die at my hands, one at a time, so he could have a glorious last stand where he took me down." It was an excellent self-justification, and she couldn't say it wasn't true.

"So how did Browbeat manage to stab him?"

"Browbeat was new to the Wards. It was possible Crash didn't have time to affect him."

"Crash's effect was instantaneous." It was the only thing all the victims agreed on.

"I gambled," Velocity said, exhausted, "that Crash was only affecting people he knew, or could identify. I pulled all of Browbeat's paperwork."

"Why?"

"Author can't write a character they don't know about." Velocity was obviously aware of how it sounded as he said it and cringed in his seat.

"And yourself?" she said. "How do you think you evaded his control?"

"I think he forgot about me," Velocity said. "I wasn't around when he turned up, and I locked my own records for the PRT so he couldn't find them."

"But surely the others remembered you?"

"Perhaps. But none of them mentioned me to Crash." Or they couldn't. As she had learned herself, going off-script was impossible when you didn't want to, or even know why you should. "Or he just didn't think my power was useful."

"There's a problem with your theory," she said, "I wasn't even supposed to be in Brockton Bay."

"Maybe he got your name from somewhere. He seems to have focused on specific people to the exclusion of all else. Hey, you got cast as super-shrink." She smiled a practiced smile, knowing she would be putting the victims of Crash's super-shrinkery back together for months, if she even could. She shouldn't be treating them at all, a fellow victim, and completely unable to be neutral despite her best efforts. With what Piggot had dropped on her, she hadn't seen her family in weeks...if she was ever going to see them again.

"So Crash was like a child playing with action figures, but using real people?" she asked, trying to cast his beliefs nearer to reality.

"And if a child doesn't own the figure, it leaves them out of the story."

"Well if it's stupid and it works-" Yamada began.

"It's still stupid and I got lucky." He finished for her. "My notes say I was hoping to interfere in the gangfight, push him into a blade or something. The instant Vista told him who I was, that went out the window. It was like I could either accept it, or fight it, but it didn't matter. Regardless, I got to be a puppet."

Yamada nodded. She knew exactly what Velocity meant. Looking out of her own eyes while her mouth parroted nonsense that could only exacerbate a patient's problems, to have the patient declaring they were cured while their body went happily about life and their mind disintegrated inside had been its own form of hell. 

"I thought I was going mad, and then everything made sense. I could remember growing up in China, travelling here with Lung, being his undercover agent in the Protectorate. I still can." He put his head in his hands, his gloved fingers tight against his temples. "I was born in Massachussetts! I went into the forces straight from school and I never left the US until after I got my powers." He had begun to shake. "But I remember..." Yamada put a hand on his shoulder, letting him know she was here, and carefully tried to forget what he had just let slip about his identity. This was not the hardest session she would have to deal with: that would be the nightmare of Amy Dallon's plural marriage to partners including her sister. For the next fifteen minutes however, her attention was the tangled problem that was Velocity's tenuous grasp on reality.

#

Yamada walked into Director Piggot's office, holding the paperwork from her session with Velocity, and trying to suppress her headache.

"Velocity will require further treatment." The Director hardly glanced up from the stack of paperwork by the side of her desk.

"Is he stable?" Piggot asked.

"I don't know. I'm not sure whether he believes we are fictional, or if he thinks Crash believed it. The former would be a problem."

"Will it stop him going on patrol?" The question was so unthinkable it did not immediately register. Yamada took a second to collect herself.

"Director, he could be seriously delusional. I can't -"

"Doctor, I can't afford to have him off the streets." Piggot snapped. "He's the current symbol of the Protectorate, and people need to see him."

"He killed a child, and he's still in shock," Yamada rebutted. "He certainly has PTSD and complications."

"That's true of everyone in this city right now, Doctor. I don't need him healed, I need him functional." Piggot's tone set her back up, and she straightened.

"Well, ma'am, I believe there are several members of staff in senior roles who are not functional." There was a glare across the table. Yamada matched it. "One of whom is refusing treatment."

"I don't have time." The Doctor cast her best clinical glance across the table.

"I've had reports that you are working your staff to extremes."

"I'm pushing them no harder than I am myself."

"Director, hyper-competency is a natural reaction to-"

"-to being cast as the incompetent authority figure." Piggot snapped over her. Yamada changed tack, softening her tone.

"Becoming the authority figure that Crash wanted will not help. Have you considered that you may be overcompensating?"

"Then, Doctor consider this." Piggot's tone was venomous. "The Bay has had incompetent management for the last several months. I have requistion and supply paperwork, budgets, patrols, inventory, unpaid wages and personnel issues which all require review because that little idiot mastering people didn't think they were important. Unpicking normal business from his influence will take longer hours and we are paying overtime."

"You don't have to do it all at once."

"Yes Doctor, I do." Piggot's breath hissed between her teeth. "Because the US government is considering whether Brockton Bay should be isolated like other mass-mastery incident cities." With obvious satisfaction she watched Yamada's face turn pale. "If I can't expose and erase all traces of the little bastard, I need to make sure we can be self-sufficient before we get quarantined."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 6**

Piggot picked up her tray, situational awareness focusing on the potential trouble spots in the cafeteria. Canary and Purity were seated together, keeping their heads down as she walked straight passed them. Two of Crash's more unlikely victims. Brockton Bay Social Services were slavering for a chance to take Aster into custody, but Piggot had a good idea of what the Blaster would do if her child was taken. The former Empire cape was useful as a P.R.T. force-projector. If she continued to be so, now Crash was out of the picture, Piggot would keep Social Services off her. Otherwise she was sure that, without Crash's power suppressing them, relatives of the former Empire member's victims would be calling for Purity's head soon enough. The media outside Brockton Bay were trying to tar Canary with the same brush The current problem was a higher priority.

Calvert was sitting in the far corner of the cafeteria, hunched over his food. Two PRT troopers were at the next table, watching him as they ate. His back was to the wall, two exits in easy reach and even closer to hard cover, Piggot noted. Some training ran too deep for any amount of trauma to erase. He was moving like an old man, lines in his face that hadn't been there during his arrest. Less smooth, less practiced, more broken. She banged her tray down deliberately to make him jump, and sat down at the table.

"Emily," he said, sounding as though the life had been sucked out of him.

"Thomas," she said, refusing to lower her voice to match his.

"Come to gloat?"

"Cut the whining self-pity. I came to see if you're competent." He didn't snap her head off and just held up the plastic knife.

"The doctors say no."

"Shows what they know." He smiled thinly. It was a reaction, she supposed. "Dammit, Thomas, you came through Ellisburg faster than this." He flinched. Good.

"I didn't trigger in Ellisburg." Piggot stopped, tried not to think about how many people could have been saved if he had, if a cape had stayed. They wouldn't have. If she - if he had gained powers then, then they would have escaped and left the others. Capes were broken, untrustworthy, people, and now Calvert was one of them. It didn't matter now. Brockton Bay mattered now. Calvert was still speaking.

"The things he made me do. It wasn't the evil things that were the worst. It was the stupid things. All those lives, all those resources, all just thrown away because a stupid kid with a lucky trigger wanted to fight a really evil villain." She'd have felt better if he'd shouted or sworn. The flat, quiet, monotone didn't fit Calvert.

She could sympathise. Trapped, watching your thoughts get forcibly derailed, a puppet made of flesh, too much like Nilbog to spare her nightmares. Crash had played with her mind, made her accept changes to her body, not let her override his specious vacuous arguments because he didn't think she should. Crash had, allegedly, liked her. Coil, Calvert, had been disposable.

"We checked the background on Coil's mercs. Most of them have criminal histories going back decades."

"So he wasn't killing good troops. That's-" he paused, picked his words carefully, "-a relief."

"And irrelevant." She cut him off. "I'll cut the crap. I don't know if you were Coil or Crash made you Coil. I don't know if Coil would have been a hero if Crash wasn't here. I doubt it. I know you." She expected sarcasm or smooth dismissal, not his hand tightening on the spoon as he stared at the table in silence. "I do know that you're unmasked and you have a power the Protectorate needs."

"And if I don't comply, you'll use everything I did to throw me away and hide the key," he said quietly. "You know any good lawyer would have me out on a Mastered defense in seconds."

"What makes you think you'll get a lawyer?" He almost laughed but it died in his throat.

"That's a hell of a Protectorate recruitment speech."

"Screw the Protectorate." He didn't choke, but his spoon paused in the listless path it was carving in the jello. "No time for induction now. I want an independent thinker on PRT retainer."

"What's in it for me?" And there was the devious bastard she knew and loathed.

"I'll put in a good word for you at your trial."

"He's dead. Good." Calvert quoted, deadpan, and she smirked. "Why me?"

"Coil had spies everywhere. They're useful. You know who they are."

"You want me to bring them in."

"I want you to put them to work for the P.R.T." Finally he looked up at her, and there was blunt calculation behind his eyes. "The city's a tinderbox. We need it to be certain the P.R.T. is in control, get a heads-up on trouble. Coil's network is made for that."

"And I'm the only adult thinker you've got who's not in coma, lobotomised, or on suicide watch. So what's in it for me?"

"Because when I retire, my successor needs to inherit a stable city. You want to make your job easier, don't you?" She thought she had him as his head raised, but the smile was crooked.

"Nice try. I'm a cape. No P.R.T. Directorate for me."

"No," she said, putting her hands flat on the table. "Armsmaster's resigned from the Protectorate pending reassignment to Canada to recover Dragon and the Birdcage. There's a position free at the head of the Protectorate, if you start establishing yourself now."

"There are other capes more senior."

"But none more qualified, especially with your power. Ms. Militia is good at tactics, not overall strategy and she hates politics." It was true, but he'd still have to compete with Velocity, Battery, and Assault, if any of them wanted the job. "If you work with Armsmaster now, his recommendation and mine carry weight." She didn't say she'd give hers, but the hint she might should be enough of a lure. She needed him usable. As he thought about it she smirked, sure she had him, and then his skin turned a sickly grey.

Piggot saw him glance across and swore to herself as Dinah Alcott sat down quietly with her cousin at a far table. Whatever happened either Oracle or Coil would have to transfer. The girl had got over her kidnap and drugging surprisingly easily; Piggot suspected a side-effect of Crash's powers, as rescuing the damsel in distress isn't so heroic when she suffers lasting trauma. Calvert hadn't. Villains were supposed to enjoy their crimes, and she remembered the hit she'd felt when - she grabbed Calvert's arm, twisted it into an armlock and wrested the plastic knife away as he tried to drive it into his throat.

As the PRT troopers piled on, Piggot cursed out loud. The troopers should have been on the ball, have reacted the moment he turned the weapon on himself. As Oracle moved to rise, she glared until the juvenile Thinker wilted and sat. There would be a time and place for this painful chat and the cafeteria was not it. As the officers walked the unresisting Calvert out, back to his cell, Emily Piggot rubbed her forehead. What a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There should be another chapter inserted before this one, dealing with New Wave, but I'm not able to finish it right now. I hate the flu.

**Author's Note:**

> Moved from one shots (because once it got to three chapters, it wasn't.)


End file.
